Animal intestine is a tubular element which extends from the stomach to the anus. The intestines of various animals have been used as a food product. The intestines of hogs extend some 16 feet to 18 feet in length, and in their natural state are of sinuous configuration, with connective tissue, fat and glands on the exterior. Food is received from the stomach and passed along the intestines as fecal matter. The term commonly applied to hog intestines which have been prepared as a food product is the word "chitterling," and this word and the word intestines are used interchangeably herein. For use as food, the chitterling must be cleaned. In preparation for cleaning, it is unstrung by cutting connective tissue between different portions of the intestine.
A machine used for cleaning chitterlings is known as the Strickler machine, such as is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,701,836 and 2,726,421 to Strickler, and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,593 to DeMoss. The chitterling is first placed on the end of a linearly extending pipe, which has a nozzle which directs water forwardly into the chitterling, and engages and removes some of the fecal matter, an appreciable amount of the fecal matter remaining in the intestine. The tubular chitterling is passed over the pipe, and a rotary cutting knife revolving on an axis perpendicular to the pipe slices the chitterling longitudinally from below. The bottom-slit chitterlings have some fecal matter adhering to them, and also have some glands, fat and connective tissues attached to them. After being slit, the chitterlings are placed on a spreading carrier and are sprayed with water from below and above for the purpose of removing fecal matter, but much of the fecal matter removed by the spray falls back on, and readheres to, the top (external) surface of the slit chitterlings.
In commercial operations, the chitterlings are next delivered to an agitating washer for further cleaning. In the agitating washer, some of the remaining fecal matter, glands, connective tissue and fat are removed by agitative washing and centrifugal force. But some of the fecal matter which is thus disassociated from the interior surface of the chitterling adheres to the exterior surface of the chitterlings and to connective tissue, fat, glands, etc. on the exterior surface.
The chitterlings are packaged and sold at this stage, in many operations. But these chitterlings have a significant amount of fecal matter, as well as some glands and connective tissue. The purchaser must spend a substantial amount of time in inspecting and manually picking out fecal matter, and fat, glands and connective tissue.
For greater cleanliness of the chitterlings, they may be passed through an inspection and hand cleaning process in which the chitterlings are individually inspected and substantially all fecal matter, together with connective tissue and fat, are removed. While this additional manual processing step is effective in removing a great amount of undesirable material from the chitterlings, it is an expensive, labor-intensive operation; the costs for these chitterlings which are substantially cleaner than those sold after the centrifugal washing is significantly higher.
The above-described processes and apparatus, which are commercially used in the United States, have a number of deficiencies. Among them are that the chitterlings which are sold after passing through the centrifugal washing machine have a substantial amount of fecal matter remaining, which requires the consumer to remove by careful, time-consuming and labor-intensive hand operations. It has now been recognized that in the above described processing apparatus and method, after the chitterling has been subjected to the initial internal water wash, and is then longitudinally slit from below and washed, there remains on the chitterling a substantial amount of fecal matter and that further washing in the agitating washing machine causes the fecal matter to be dis-associated from the smooth, non-adherent interior surface of the chitterling, and enter into the water in the agitating washer machine. Due to the movement of the chitterling and of the water, the dis-associated fecal material moves to and adheres to the exterior surface of the chitterling which is adherent to the fecal matter. Hence, it has been noted that the initial internal washing does not remove the fecal matter from the chitterling and that the further spray washing and agitating washing result in fecal matter engaging and adhering to the exterior surface of the chitterling. In the commercial operation using the above-described machine, approximately 6 intestines per minute are partially cleaned, with a water consumption of approximately 40 gallons per minute. In an eight hour shift, approximately 400,000 gallons of water are used to clean about 16,000 chitterlings, which still have substantial fecal matter remaining.
In addition, the processing of chitterlings by using the machine as above-described requires one or more attendants to manually retrieve a chitterling from a supply of them, place an end of the chitterling over the end of the water tube having the nozzle, and to push the chitterling along the tube. This requires repetitive motions, and subjects the worker to the risk of injury due to a repetition of the same motion many times during the working day. Moreover, the process is time-and labor-intensive and thus costly.